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Wednesday, November 29, 2000
Senate vote, far from exalting four-party coalition, signals overall disenchantment By Keith Crawford Basically it is nonsense to say that these Senate elections were a "triumph" for the four-party coalition, for four very good reasons. To begin with, the four-party coalition did not win the elections; rather, the other parties lost. This was not necessarily positive support for the four-party coalition, but a protest vote against the two parties forming the infamous "opposition pact": the Social Democrats (CSSD), led by Prime Minister Milos Zeman, and the Civic Democrats (ODS), led by former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus. This has been described as the "backlash effect," where the majority of the electorate have not really made the personal economic gains that they expected to make out of the post-1989 reform process and simply vote against the parties in power -- irrespective of whether those parties have provided good, stable government or not. To a certain extent, fulfilling the needs of this majority are probably impossible in the short-term, i.e. the first 20-25 years after the downfall of communism, because the changes required are so drastic, painful and unpopular. This has led to an "electoral carousel" in some countries, with governments swapping from left to right in yo-yo fashion, and with increased instability because of the frequency and rapidity of the turnover of political elites. Secondly, these recent elections in the Czech Republic were no "triumph" for any party, as the voting turnout was abysmally low for a parliamentary election. Even Josef Zieleniec's outright "victory" with 52 percent of votes at the first round of voting in Prague 4 was secured with only 18.2 percent support of the district's electorate. In particular, there was nothing short of massive disinterest in the elections by the 20-35-year-old age group -- precisely the age group that is being looked upon to bring about real political, economic and social change in the next two decades. If there is one clear message from this age group in the recent elections it is "a plague on all your parties," and that includes the four-party coalition, which is still going to have to prove to these younger people that its politicians are indeed "something completely different." Thirdly, the success of the four-party coalition in obtaining control of the Senate is somewhat of a hollow victory, as the first parliamentary chamber can easily overrule the Senate except in amendments to the constitution. This essentially means that the Czech legislative system is going to require a great deal of compromise in order to function smoothly. Yet the inability to reach consensus among various political parties has probably been the greatest problem facing Czech politics since 1989. Troubled coalitions In this respect, it is worth remembering that the Christian Democrats caused immeasurable instability during the 1996-97 right-wing government that tried to survive on a wafer-thin majority. Likewise, coalition-building among parties on the right was seriously undermined after the 1998 parliamentary elections by the outright refusal of the center-right Freedom Union under Jan Ruml -- a mere two hours after polls closed -- to contemplate any coalition with either the Civic or Social Democrats. (The Freedom Union and the Christian Democrats are now the two main parties of the four-party coalition.) In similar vein, the four-party coalition has to show that it is a solid union and not likely to break down into fragmented, factional groups, as has been the problem with other coalitions during the past 10 years -- beginning with Civic Forum, which, in March- April 1991, split into several different groups within nine months of a convincing victory at the polls. Lastly, if you take the results of the regional elections (plus the three senatorial contests in Prague, as no regional elections took place in the capital) and transpose them into the 35 electoral districts that will be used for the next parliamentary elections, the Civic Democratic Party will be the largest party in the future Parliament. In fact, the Civic Democrats could quite easily continue some kind of cooperation with the Social Democrats, as these two parties would have a workable majority in the first parliamentary chamber. This time, however, the Civic Democratic Party would be in the driver's seat and would control the distribution of ministerial portfolios. The greatest loser in these elections has been, as usual, the Czech electorate. It still does not have the kinds of parliamentary representatives and party stability that its new, young democracy so desperately requires. Maybe the new senators from the four-party coalition will instigate the changes in attitude needed on the part of the parliamentarians to listen to and respond to the desires of the electorate. Or maybe not! The writer is a visiting lecturer in comparative politics at the Institute of International Studies at the Charles University Faculty of Social Sciences.
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The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.